


Seven seconds til the end

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: M/M, Original game spoilers, Remake spoilers, about as much sefikura as the remake, light sefikura, which is still a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: one heavy swordtwo empty handsthree untold futuresfour stuttering stepsfive points of datasix minor notes…seven seconds til the end.(seven moments between Sephiroth and Cloud throughout the remake)
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 25
Kudos: 113





	Seven seconds til the end

**1.**

Time was a nebulous thing. Distance, space—these were merely suggestions, pulling at Sephiroth but not truly inhibiting him. 

Ever since Sephiroth had awoken, a malicious consciousness coursing through the lifestream but never joining with it, he had felt the strings tying him to Cloud Strife, binding the two of them inextricably together. 

It was possible Cloud didn’t know it yet. _But he would._

Stumbling through the fires in Midgar’s Sector 8, likely consumed by memories of another fire, another starless night, Cloud’s anguish resonated as clearly as a song in the space between them. And Sephiroth found himself drawn, for the first time in a long time, into a physical manifestation. 

“You’re not real.” Cloud stared at him, wide-eyed and helpless. His eyes glowed like mako, flaring brighter as Sephiroth approached. 

He looked nothing like the ferocious warrior who had ended Sephiroth’s attempt at godhood in the base of Northern Crater in what was either an uncertain future or another reality—or both. That Cloud Strife had met Sephiroth’s blows with equal strength; his force of will prevailed where all of Jenova’s genetic gifts could not. 

But this was Cloud as he had been at the start of the journey, not all that much younger in age, perhaps, but clearly weaker in spirit. He blinked, his eyes shining with tears, and his hand trembled as he reached for the hilt of the Buster Sword. 

“You’re dead,” he whispered. It sounded more like a plea. 

“I am?” Sephiroth glanced at him, wildly unimpressed. 

“I killed you with my own...” Cloud’s voice faltered, broke. 

“Oh, you need not remind me. It was the crowning moment of our time together.” 

While Cloud clearly meant his clumsy attack in the Nibelheim reactor, Sephiroth thought instead of their final duel, the one that had stopped the Meteor before it could end the world. He smiled at the memory. All his life, he had wanted to meet the man who could defeat him. It was only a pity they had so little time together, at the end. 

“But that was then and this is now,” he said. The fear on Cloud’s face would certainly make that impossible to forget. 

It was possible this was the reason Sephiroth had been sent back in time. This version of Cloud would be so easy to break. And perhaps then it would be the two of them, calling the Meteor. The two of them together, where Sephiroth in the past had always been alone. 

He liked that idea very much. 

It was simple to speak of the things that burned in Cloud’s heart—his mother, dying in the fire that consumed Nibelheim. Claudia Strife had been in Sephiroth’s way, nothing more. At the time, he’d had no inkling of what Cloud Strife would become. But now he taunted Cloud, telling him of his mother’s suffering, inventing agonies that he could have inflicted, had he understood her importance. 

Cloud’s teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl, his hands gripping the hilt of the Buster Sword. For a moment, he looked like the warrior he could become. Sephiroth’s equal, his answer, his reflection bathed in light. 

The champion of the Planet which Sephiroth once sought to destroy. But if the planet were to cease to exist...

“That which binds us together would be no more, and I would be loath to live in such a world,” he told Cloud. “Which is why I must ask you this one favor. Don’t worry, it’s a simple thing.” 

Cloud said nothing, the sword trembling in his grasp. 

“Run, Cloud. Run away. You have to leave. You have to live.”

Sephiroth wondered if Cloud would do it. If Cloud turned tail and ran, he would let him go. He would spare Cloud’s life, for as long as any life on Gaia could be protected. 

Cloud clenched his teeth and hefted the Buster Sword. “You bastard!”

Heedless to any danger, he charged, leaping into the air with the same sheer recklessness that Sephiroth’s dearest foe had always possessed. Sephiroth wondered if Cloud had any idea how beautiful he was like this, his cheeks wet with tears but his eyes blazing with righteous fury. 

Sephiroth waited until the very last moment, when the sharp edge of the sword had almost connected with his body, before he let his physical manifestation cease and his consciousness recede. He would need to lay low, recover his strength, before reaching out to Cloud again. 

“Good, Cloud, very good. Hold onto that hatred.”

**2.**

“You have failed again, I see.” 

Sephiroth smiled at the anguish in Cloud’s eyes, the fear that made them glow bright as searchlights. Such a naive child, to think that he could alter that which was set in stone. To think that one as frail as him could impact the future in any meaningful way. 

“But through suffering you will grow strong.” Sephiroth put a hand on Cloud’s shoulder and leaned close, to whisper in his ear. “Isn’t that what you want?” 

Cloud said nothing. He didn’t need to. He was no longer a warrior; he was nothing, less than nothing, and Sephiroth could smell the weakness clinging to him like a filthy shroud. 

_What a pity._

This boy was nothing like the man Sephiroth had fought, in the depths of Northern Crater. And it was unlikely he would ever have the chance to be.

**3.**

It was a gift, programmed into the Shinra VR system. Neat little lines of code, wrapped in encryption and waiting to be presented. Cloud Strife’s unique SOLDIER eyes were the key. When the VR system registered his presence, the new script installed itself, and the future played out in stunning HD. The Meteor, the deaths of those he loved, and his own future, wreathed in flame.

**4.**

Palmer scowled, strolling down the wide hallway as fiercely as he could given that he was carrying a teacup and a saucer. 

_I oughta fire that secretary. Forgetting the butter. How incompetent can you be?_

The teacup jiggled in his grasp, and he steadied it with the saucer. He looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of black leather and long strands of silver hair, the steady, silent gait of a predator. 

Like any prey would in such a situation, Palmer cowered back against the wall, dropping his tea in his hurry to be away from the beast stalking through the halls. He held his breath and remained perfectly still until the danger had passed, his heart beating rabbitlike in his chest. 

**5.**

Hojo glanced away from the failed experiment, who had proved to be very tenacious indeed, as another monitor flickered to life. 

There, on the catwalk near Sector 4. 

_Sephiroth._

His successful experiment. 

His crowning scientific achievement. 

His son. 

Back from the dead, just as Hojo predicted. He knew without zooming in on the image that the limp figure in Sephiroth’s arms was Jenova, beloved Mother, Calamity of the Skies. 

“Well done, my boy,” he said, his mouth curving into a pleased smirk. 

**6.**

The man before her resonated eerily, like a sour note amid a swelling symphony, a sinister melody played in a minor key. Aerith gritted her teeth against the din. 

“And you, you’re _wrong._ ”

Sephiroth looked back at her with mild indifference. “Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows.” 

“Everything about you is _wrong_.” She clenched her fists, desperately summoning her power to surround her like a shimmering cloak of light. But he didn’t seem to care. It seemed no creature truly mattered to him, save one. He was drawn to Cloud, and just as cruelly, Cloud was drawn to him. 

It was _wrong._

“All born are bound to her,” he said. Speaking of _all,_ seeing only Cloud. “Should this world be unmade, so too shall her children.”

Cloud stepped forward. Not bravado, not this time. It was a quiet, indomitable courage that gave him the strength to lift the Buster Sword in a clear challenge. Aerith’s heart ached as he took a single step forward, the first step in a journey from which he would not return the same. 

“The world won’t end today.” Cloud watched Sephiroth, tracking him with the tip of his blade. “But you...you will.” 

Sephiroth simply looked up at the sky. “Listen.” 

A shattering cry split the air, the desperate wail of all those who lived, who had something to lose in the coming storm. It chilled Aerith down to her very core. 

The flash of the Masamune drew her eyes back to Sephiroth, who sliced the darkness as easily as a piece of black fabric. The cut grew into a portal that pulsed with bright light and ill intent. 

Sephiroth smiled. It was a barely perceptible curve of his lips, but his eyes danced with some kind of sick joy. 

“I’m waiting, Cloud.” 

**7.**

Cloud pressed his hand to his head, grimacing and nearly doubled over in pain. Sephiroth took his wrist, gently, and pulled him to his feet. 

“Careful, Cloud,” he said. “That which lies ahead...does not yet exist.” 

Cloud looked at him with blazing hatred, jerking his wrist away and stumbling backward. But the fear, the terror that once lit his bright eyes, was gone. Like a wire stripped of its coating, he was raw and exposed, sparking with fury. 

_Beautiful._

How wrong Sephiroth had been to think that the flame which had burned so brightly could ever be extinguished. How foolish, to assume that Cloud Strife was weak, simply because he had not been fully tested. 

He found he was glad, exhilarated, to have his old, dear enemy back again. If only they could stay here forever, crossing swords beneath the swirling galaxies. 

Sephiroth looked pensively up at the colors streaked across the dark sky. “Our world will become a part of it one day. But I...will not end. Nor will I have you end.” 

“This is…” Cloud whispered, almost reverently. 

“The edge of Creation.” 

Sephiroth turned to study him, the fierce Nibel warrior he remembered. At his core, Cloud was the same; would always be the same. Unbreakable. Indomitable. Inevitable. 

He was struck by the impulse to cross the distance between them, to reach out not with the cold steel of the Masamune, but with an extended hand. 

“Cloud.” He hesitated, then stepped forward. “Lend me your strength. Let us defy destiny together.” 

Cloud didn’t even consider it. He raised his sword and bared his teeth. “Never.” 

He lunged, quick and fierce and deadly, but no match for Sephiroth, not here, not now. Someday, perhaps, if the world kept turning along the same tracks it once had, but not today. Sephiroth parried him easily, let him attack again and again in a dance they both knew better than any other. It was easier to hate each other than to love anyone at all. And this hate was all Sephiroth had left. 

“Not yet,” he chided, and sent the Buster Sword flying. The weapon buried itself in the ground several yards away, and Cloud stood perfectly still, unwilling to yield even in defeat. 

But their time was drawing to a close. 

“Seven seconds til the end,” Sephiroth promised. He approached, and Cloud let him, refusing to show fear or give any sign of defeat. “Enough time for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let’s see.” 

Cloud turned to him, his face tilted upward, his mako-bright eyes shining like beacons in the gathering darkness. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but before he could, the vision faded, and the moment was gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> come be my friend on tumblr: [@cruellae-fics](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cruellae-fics)


End file.
